


Riddle of the S.P.H.I.N.X.

by nightingaelic



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Care of Magical Creatures, Gen, Magizoology (Harry Potter), Wizarding World (Harry Potter), Zoology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 18:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21020381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightingaelic/pseuds/nightingaelic
Summary: Newt Scamander isn't the only magizoologist out there.





	Riddle of the S.P.H.I.N.X.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was grown out of a prompt to write a pet park AU for a fandom I enjoy. It kind of morphed away from a standard pet park, as you'll soon see. Now, it's the story of how Bunty started working for Newt Scamander.

Newt Scamander opened the door to his London flat barely a second after the doorbell rang to find Cordelia Silverling on his doorstep, adjusting her beret. 

“Mr. Scamander,” she said warmly. “Have I come to the right address? Your little street is so quaint.” 

“Yes, yes, of course,” Newt stammered, lingering too long in the doorway before realizing and jumping to the side to let her in. “Please, just through there.” 

Cordelia smiled reassuringly and made her way into Newt’s apartment, her heels tapping on the tiled floor. Her sharp eyes traveled over the dining room he had hastily cleaned at the last minute before settling on him again. 

“Do you mind if I use your fireplace?” she asked. “There’s something I forgot to tell my husband.” 

“N-not at all.” Newt directed her to the den and the pot of Floo powder he kept on the mantelpiece before taking her crimson coat and hanging it on a hook by the door. While the fire crackled in the other room, he took deep breaths and went back to the kettle warming on the stove. 

“It’s just a S.P.H.I.N.X. meeting,” he said to himself as the water began to boil. “Just an ordinary, ordinary meeting.” 

The Society for the Protection, Husbandry, Investigation and Nurture of Classified Beasts had first met some years ago, and had always endeavored to meet at least once a year following its inception. Estella Staghart, one of the group’s founding members, cleverly suggested they shorten the name to S.P.H.I.N.X., using a play on the Ministry of Magic’s beast classification system to finish out the acronym. The title stuck, and S.P.H.I.N.X. quietly hosted annual meetings around the British Isles for a select group of magizoologists to come and share their findings with peers. Newt had been invited to attend after showing his skills in the Ministry’s Beast Division, and had impressed the members of the group with his thorough and varied knowledge of creatures from bowtruckles to dragons. 

Where some had seen talent and promise, however, others saw competition and rivalry. Part of the annual meeting, following banter and biscuits, consisted of showing the other witches and wizards what creature one was currently focused on studying or preserving. Traditionally, S.P.H.I.N.X. members played their cards close to their chest, revealing only research notes and scales or feathers of the beast they had found. Newt had done away with this subtlety entirely when he took his peers on a tour of the newly-constructed mooncalf habitat inside his suitcase, complete with a mated mooncalf pair. Most of the group had gasped and been appropriately impressed, but some had taken the exhibition as a personal challenge. 

Zinc Barrows, one of the Newt’s most fervent adversaries, strode into the flat without knocking and with a decidedly sour look on his face. Newt nodded without making eye contact and set the fresh teapot on the dining room table to steep. Zinc had a talent for finding and preserving magical creatures, but he had a reputation for experimentation that made Newt and a few other magizoologists nervous. 

“Bit of a shoebox, innit?” the wizard said, sniffing the air. He pulled his leather traveling bag from his shoulder and shook it out upside down, like he was trying to find spare Sickles. Zinc’s companion, Hardscrabble, a great black cat with bulging yellow eyes, slunk out of the bag and gave Newt a stare of disapproval. Newt grimaced back. Though he couldn’t prove it, he was fairly certain Zinc had crossed a kneazle with a matagot to make the unholy feline specimen before him. 

As if to save him from an awkward silence, there was a zip in the air and Estella Staghart apparated into one of the seats at the table. Newt relaxed instantly. He’d had Estella around for tea before, and he rather enjoyed her stories about hunting manticores in Greece during its struggle with the Ottoman Empire. 

“Now then, Newt,” the grandmotherly witch said, pulling a hedgehog from inside her emerald cloak. “Knarl or garden pig?” 

“It’s just a hedgehog, Estella,” Newt said with a smile, tenderly taking the little ball of spines from her. It squalled and pulsed, unhappy with its exposure to the light over the table, so he immediately stowed it away inside a spare tea cozy. 

“How many more can we expect?” he asked, wringing his hands nervously. 

“Four, perhaps five,” Estella said, helping herself to the scones Newt had laid out. “I’ve invited a few new faces and that Dylan Marwood again, but he fancies himself more of a linguist than a magizoologist, like Ortiz O’Flaherty or some such. Perhaps he’ll turn up at the end just for the tea.” 

She winked. “Then again, he did say he knew a witch from the Ministry that you’d had by to help you with a pet project of yours. Told him she’d never seen anything like it, what you were putting together. And so soon after your new publication, too. What are you up to, Mr. Scamander?” 

Newt grinned and looked down at his feet. Against his better judgment, he had offered to host this year’s meeting following the launch of his first book, _ Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them. _ Even now, he was practically humming with pride, elation held in only by the mortifying experience of having to interact with his fellow witches and wizards in order to share his accomplishment. 

One by one, the rest of the attending S.P.H.I.N.X. members filed in. Dmitri Yanovich, the stoic and mysterious Care of Magical Creatures instructor at Durmstrang Institute. The witch Ukudlala from the South African plains, a quiet woman with kind eyes and the most thorough knowledge of wild erumpent behavior known to wizardry. Abraham Grimblehawk, a new recruit at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures that specialized in household pests and the safe relocation of them. Elisenda Vera, the vaquera whose journals about a small population of Appaloosa winged horses in the American Cordillera had taken the magizoology community by storm. And Dylan Marwood did turn up after all, just as the chattering group had divided up the scones and begun discussing the current flight patterns of griffins over Bulgaria. Newt sat at the head of the table, basking in the unique glow that comes from being among a community with the same, happy purpose as oneself. 

“Friends, members,” Estella said, when they’d all had their fill of refreshments. “Let’s call this meeting to order, shall we?” 

Hardscrabble curled contentedly up in Zinc’s lap and closed his eyes. The giant cat looked much less threatening when he was asleep. 

Estella inclined her head toward Newt. “As is tradition, let our host recite our pledge.” 

“Yes. Um.” Newt stood up, suddenly aware of his limbs and their dangling uselessness in that moment. “That is… right.” 

“There you go, go on.” 

“Right.” Newt took a deep breath. “As members of the Society for the Protection, Husbandry, Investigation and Nurture of Classified Beasts, we pledge to w-walk the darkest jungles, trudge the brightest deserts, climb the highest mountain peaks and wade the marshiest bogs in search of, in service of, and in deference to the beasts and creatures that lie within. This we swear.” 

“This we swear,” the members around the table echoed. 

Estella rubbed her hands together. “That’s that. Now, who wants to go first?” 

Newt sat down again, doing his best not to bounce his knees in anticipation. While he listened to Dylan’s descriptions of the differences between merpeople in the Mediterranean and those of the Scottish lochs, Elisenda’s recollected run-in with a re’em in the Mojave and Cordelia’s ongoing trials to harness the disappearance and reappearance abilities of the diricawl and phoenix for the wizarding community, the smile on his face grew. Rarely did he get the opportunity to listen to a group as experienced and enthusiastic about magical beasts as the people around him, even if some of them turned up their noses at him and his flat. If nothing else, it was a wonderful distraction from that whole business in New York. 

Ukudlala was in the middle of a spirited story about her past summer spent living with a band of clabberts in the jungles of Brazil when there was a knock on the front door. Newt got up to answer it. 

“Hello, Mr. Scamander,” said the witch on the step, a freckled young woman with a frazzled blonde hair bun and an enormous smile. She looked very familiar. “Am I too early?” 

From behind Newt, Dylan cleared his throat loudly. “Too late, actually, miss,” he said. 

The witch’s face fell. “Oh dear. I’m sorry, I must have gotten the time wrong, or perhaps I set my-” 

“It’s fine, dearie,” Estella said quickly, transfiguring one of the spare teacups into an extra chair. She scooted her own chair over and patted the china-patterned seat. “Come, sit. Everyone, this is Bunty Thistlethwaite, recent Hogwarts graduate and up-and-coming… what was it you called it?” 

“Veterinarian,” Bunty said quickly, edging her way around the table to the offered chair. “I’m sorry I’m late.” 

Newt offered her tea, which she accepted, warming her fingers on the cup while Ukudlala resumed her story. There was an angry burn mark on Bunty’s left hand that Newt recognized, having received a few himself when he was younger and working with fire crabs. 

Once Abraham had finished regaling them with the tale of the largest garden gnome infestation the Ministry had ever dealt with, Newt sprang from his chair and put his thumbs under his suspenders proudly. “Follow me,” he said brightly, leading the way through the kitchen to the back hallway and closet where a set of stairs descended below. 

The members of S.P.H.I.N.X. came down the stairs behind him, understandably more hesitant. Newt waved his wand and a few balls of light flew out, gliding away to bob over a series of doorways covered with curtains along the criss-crossing staircase. Newt paused before the first of these and spun around, letting his sense of showmanship take over. 

“Please,” he said, holding his hand out to Estella, palm up. “Whatever other creature is lurking in your pocket. May I?” 

Estella eyed him knowingly, and she reached inside her cloak to withdraw a fluffy black ball. The ball shifted and looked up at Newt with curious eyes and a long snout. 

“A niffler,” Newt said, delighted. He accepted the roly-poly bundle carefully. “Perfect.” 

Gently, he set the niffler on the ground. It stared up at him for a moment longer before diving for the curtain and jostling it aside. From behind the curtain a pile of glittering snow tumbled out, and the niffler began rolling around in it, momentarily dazzled by its appearance. Newt drew back the curtain the rest of the way to reveal mountain peaks and ice shining in the sun, a stark contrast to the drab London afternoon upstairs. 

Estella clapped her hands in delight. “Newt, you’ve outdone yourself.” 

But Newt wasn’t done yet. He bounded down to the next curtain, where he extended his hand next to Ukudlala. The Zulu witch brought forth a fwooper from inside her shawl. Newt let it fly free, and it circled the meeting group once before soaring into the jungle doorway that Newt directed it to. 

“Constructs, like your suitcase?” Elisenda asked, looking into a doorway that opened onto a grassy plain reminiscent of a Mongolian steppe. 

“Yes, but much, much larger,” Newt replied, running his hand over the brick columns that framed an opening into a lake full of kelp. “Had to get special permission from the Ministry, they usually like to oversee extension charms that pass a certain size.” 

“It’s very impressive,” Cordelia said, drawing back the curtain that revealed steps down into a tidal pool full of corals and shellfish. “Why build it, though? Unless you’ve lost your suitcase.” 

“Absolutely not,” Newt replied quickly, cutting off what he was certain was Cordelia’s attempt to ask about his rumored involvement with the recent M.A.C.U.S.A. kerfuffle. “I just feel that some of my creatures could benefit from having some more space than a dusty old traveling case could possibly offer them. Particularly some of the ones in need of daily medical attention.” 

“Ah yes,” Estella said, nodding. “I did get your letter about the kelpie. When did you plan to transfer them?” 

Newt pulled his worn suitcase from beneath a wheeled table and set it on the metal surface with a flourish. “Right now. If, of course, there are no… no objections.” 

He waited until the others had retrieved their various pocket beasts from the basement habitats before carefully unlatching the leather container and giving a two-fingered whistle. 

The rest of the group took a step back, but Newt and Bunty stayed stationary, even as a whirl of colors, feathers, fur and scales burst forth from the suitcase and rocketed into the basement interior. A flock of crying augureys, a galloping graphorn and its offspring, a contented-looking leucrotta covered in a green blanket of bowtruckles and more emerged, sniffing the air curiously and making beelines for the doorways that best suited them. Newt closed the lid of the suitcase once his own niffler had rolled out, pocketing the fluffy creature before it could get far. 

“The rest might need some special accommodations to be moved,” he said apologetically. Truthfully, many of his remaining creatures were highly-classified by the Ministry, and might cause too much of a stir if he revealed them now. 

The members of S.P.H.I.N.X. looked a tad overwhelmed. Bunty was looking positively windswept, but she had a smile on her face that suggested she was right where she belonged. In that instant, Newt recognized her: She’d been the excited witch who had attended his book signing at Flourish and Blotts that March, and requested he write _ To a Fellow Lover of the Beasts _ inside her copy. 

“You’ve been keeping _ all _ of _ them _in your suitcase?” Cordelia asked. “How on earth do you manage to keep them from eating each other?” 

“Mutual respect and enrichment,” Newt said, scooping up Pickett from the back of the leucrotta, which had stopped its trajectory to trumpet loudly at the group watching it. He patted the deer’s round belly and let the bowtruckle climb into his top pocket. “And a series of distraction charms, when necessary.” 

Zinc snorted in disdain. “Seems like a waste of resources and talent to me,” he said loudly. “With all this ruckus going on, how can you settle down and focus on any one creature?” 

“Well go on then,” Estella said, turning and crossing her arms at the wizard and his giant cat. “What have you been focusing on these days, Mr. Barrows?” 

Zinc smiled and reached inside his traveling bag again. Hardscrabble hissed and twisted around behind his legs, while the wizard extracted the end of a heavy iron chain. Link by link, the chain slid out of the pack until the creature on the other end of it was forced out into the light. 

Newt gasped, and his vision clouded in anger. The chained beast was a juvenile sphinx, barely half-grown and thin from lack of nourishment. Her facial features were sharpening, but they still lacked the coloration of adult specimens, and her dark hair was still more of a mane than a coiffed gathering of braids. The collected jewelry from Egyptian, Greek and Persian tombs was also absent, replaced with a leather collar and the chain. 

“Captured her on the edge of Giza less than a month ago,” Zinc said proudly, rattling the chain. The sphinx slunk low to the ground while Hardscrabble hissed and spat at her. Her eyes were sunken and hopeless, with none of the fire present in the eyes of sphinxes Newt had encountered. 

The other S.P.H.I.N.X. members looked just as shocked at the sphinx’s appearance, and Bunty moved as if to feel the creature’s jutting ribs. Zinc jerked the chain back, dragging the weak sphinx with it. 

“She’s not well,” Bunty protested. “Look, her coat is growing patchy over here, and she’s much more pale in the face than any of the pictures I’ve-” 

“Worry about your own specimens, if you have any,” Zinc snapped. 

“She’s right,” Newt said quietly, stepping forward. “What could you possibly be doing with her that would put her in this state?” 

“Whatever state she’s in is irrelevant,” Abraham said indignantly, drawing himself up to her full height. “You’re not allowed to have such a creature in the British Isles unless you have a permit for it, and I can tell you for certain we’ve no record of kept sphinxes at the Department.” 

_ “Irrelevant?” _ Bunty exclaimed. 

“Do put her away, Zinc,” Estella said, waving her hand dismissively. “We’ve all seen enough.” 

As Zinc yanked the sphinx’s chain backward until she slipped back into his bag, Newt was sorely tempted to break her chains and wrest control of the creature away. Bunty looked as though she wanted to do the same, and together they shared a glance of understanding. 

“Oh, Mr. Scamander,” Bunty said suddenly, clasping her hands together. “Wasn’t that a _ nundu _I saw emerging from your suitcase earlier? I thought their breath was lethal to anyone within 50 kilometers of them.” 

Zinc perked up. “A nundu, you say? It’s been some time since I ran across one. Might I have a look?” 

“How on earth did you obtain a permit for a Nundu?” Dylan asked, bewildered. 

Newt ran a hand through his hair and glanced over at Bunty. She nodded encouragingly, then jerked her eyes toward Zinc. 

“It’s yet to go through adolescence,” Newt explained, leading the group up the stairs to the jungle doorway that the nundu had disappeared into. “Of course, it’s already over 20 years old, as far as I can tell, but nundu don’t reach maturity until they’re at least 75 years old. They develop the toxic breath at around 100, and though their maturity rate is slow, they never stop growing.” 

Zinc followed the rest of the group up the stairs but Bunty stayed put. Behind his spectators, Newt saw her pull out her wand silently. 

“This one… this one I discovered on an excursion in Mozambique,” he babbled on. “Some of the locals said it came from the ocean, a great sea monster come to terrorize their livestock. He seems to like swimming, and I think perhaps that’s how he was separated from his mother.” 

The strap of the leather pouch around Zinc’s back slowly lifted, replaced by a ghost of itself. Zinc didn’t seem to notice as the pouch slid off and back, toward Bunty’s waiting hand. The witch began rummaging around in it, withdrawing teabags, a comb, a package of crisps and some knuts before finding the end of the chain. She opened the pouch wide and whispered something into it. 

The sound of the chain links clanking nearly drew the attention of Zinc and the S.P.H.I.N.X. members, but Newt spun around quickly and pulled a worn rubber ball from his pocket. He squeezed it, and a high-pitched squeak rang out into the jungle space. There was a crashing in the underbrush, and an enormous black cat covered in spines sprawled into the leaves before him, purring and batting a paw up at the toy. 

Ukudlala smiled and Cordelia shrieked. Zinc stared, open-mouthed, watching the spines pulse as the nundu’s purrs inflated and deflated the ruff around its neck. Behind him, Bunty persuaded the sphinx to climb from the pouch and bundled her away into a nearby desert habitat before drawing its curtain shut. Newt scratched the nundu under the chin and threw the ball, watching the great beast bound after it like an enthusiastic dog. 

“He should grow out of this juvenile behavior in another decade or two,” he said as they watched the predator fling the ball into the treetops, then rocket after it in pursuit. The leather strap of the pouch again slid into place on Zinc’s shoulder, and Newt let out the breath he’d been holding in. 

* * *

Later, after Newt had bidden Zinc goodbye upstairs and received a suspicious look from Hardscrabble before the door shut, Estella Staghart pulled him aside while she put her coat on. 

“You sure you’ll be able to handle everything downstairs by yourself, Newt?” she asked earnestly. “It does seem like rather a lot for just you.” 

Newt shrugged. “It’s not like I’m particularly busy these days, Estella. You know the Ministry isn’t letting me travel right now.” 

“Well, if you find it to be too much, you send me an owl,” Estella said, nodding smartly and straightening her glasses. “And do be nice to Bunty, not everyone’s as impressive as you during their first S.P.H.I.N.X. meeting.” 

She disapparated, leaving Newt smiling down at his feet again. He rocked back and forth for a moment before racing through his kitchen and down the basement stairs, to where Bunty had stayed behind to examine the billywigs. 

The witch was leaning in the doorway of the desert habitat, and she spun around when she heard his footsteps above her. “She’s incredible,” she said brightly. “I think with a series of healthy meals, some conditioning and a round of ointment applications, you might be able to release her back into the wild.” 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to take care of that,” Newt said, joining her at the doorway. “I’ve been ordered not to leave the country.” 

“Oh.” Bunty looked mortified. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” 

“Yes.” Newt watched the sphinx in the distance, already holding herself a little higher while she prowled around the sand dunes and palm oasis that was now hers. “A veterinarian, you said? Earlier?” 

“Yes.” Bunty nodded. “My mother was a witch, but my father was a muggle. He was a large animal veterinarian. It’s why I was so interested in Care of Magical Creatures at school.” 

“You came to my book signing.” 

“I did.” Bunty smiled shyly. “It’s a marvelous book.” 

“Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” Bunty’s face fell. “Do you think Zinc will report her missing, once he realizes?” 

“I doubt it,” Newt replied. “If he’s not registered her with the Ministry, then he’ll just incriminate himself when he goes to report her stolen.” 

“But won’t he suspect you?” 

“Most likely. But I’ve got bigger worries than Zinc Barrows.” 

They fell silent for a minute, watching the sphinx drink at the desert oasis. A thought struck Newt, and he turned back to Bunty. “What did you whisper into the bag?” he asked. 

“A riddle,” Bunty replied. “Your book said they were fond of them. I thought of the hardest one I could, hoping it might interest her enough to encourage her to climb out and stay here.” 

“What was it?” 

“I have ten servants that obey my orders,” Bunty recited. “They assist me whenever I need them. They feed me, help me put on my clothes and they turn the pages of my book when I am reading. They never argue among themselves. Who are they?” 

Newt frowned. “What’s the answer?” 

Bunty grinned and held her hands up, wiggling her fingers. Newt stared at them, then began to chuckle. “It might take her a while to get that one,” he admitted. “She hasn’t got any.” 

“Precisely.” 

“Bunty,” Newt said thoughtfully. “Would you like a job?”


End file.
